


So Easy To Fall In Love

by luninosity



Series: Oh Boy! Or, Life's Better With A Buddy Holly Soundtrack [12]
Category: British Actor RPF, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Coffee, Comfort, Coming Out, Decisions, In Public, Love, M/M, Mornings, Sleepy Cuddles, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 12:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1304875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a lazy morning is interrupted by quite a lot of phone calls, and photos surfacing on the internet. And James and Michael make a decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Easy To Fall In Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snootiegirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snootiegirl/gifts).



> For a prompt about how they handled coming out, in this 'verse. Set the morning after [You Know My Love'll Not Fade Away,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/613191) though you don’t necessarily have to have read that one first.
> 
> Title, opening, and closing lines from Buddy Holly’s “It’s So Easy.”

  
_ it’s so easy to fall in love _   
_ it’s so easy to fall in love _   
_ people tell me love’s for fools _   
_ well, here I go, breakin’ all of the rules… _   


  
Their mobiles go off simultaneously. Michael’s yowls the Flash Gordon theme into the air. James’s makes a transporter sound—Michael at least knows it’s a Star Trek reference, thank you—and tries valiantly to drown out Freddie Mercury.  
  
“Ow,” James says plaintively, and doesn’t even move, just squeezes one eye even more shut in annoyance. “What…phones…why…”  
  
“Shh,” Michael tells him, “go back to sleep,” and smacks buttons until both offending devices stop clamoring for attention. James needs to sleep. James, besides being adorably incoherent pre-caffeine, genuinely could use the rest.   
  
They’re lying lazily in the luxurious hotel bed, taking advantage of the day off between table read and wardrobe consultations. It’s a sun-drenched morning, edging toward afternoon with reluctant golden languor. Comfortable and indolent. Or it had been, until a moment ago.  
  
Yesterday James had held his hand and come back with him from that table read. Last night James had woken shaking with fear, wide-eyed and pale and terrified. But James had also let Michael hold him through the aftermath. Had said, _I love you_ , and listened when Michael’d said the words right back.   
  
It’s been a confusing twenty-four hours. And while they’d awakened fantastically tumbled together and smiling and safe, while Michael’d opened eyes and seen James soundly sleeping with no nightmares in view, while he’s committed with body and heart and soul and he’s certain James is too…  
  
…that doesn’t make it uncomplicated.   
  
James grew up short and beautiful and kind; grew up with his grandparents and his sister, with a sometimes mother, and a father about whom James never speaks. Michael’s never visited that old neighborhood, those cracked Glasgow streets and barred tenement windows and odd green shoots poking determinedly through dingy pavement; James might allow him in that far, he thinks, he hopes, someday. James has told him the outline, if not the detail; the shape, if not the shading, of that childhood. James had inexplicably entrusted him, one morning, with that much: out of nowhere, that’d been, two weeks into their first try, two weeks and a day from their first-ever kiss, and even more weeks before they’d shared a bed for anything but sex. Michael’d woken up early to the sound of a thunderstorm and a knock on his door; James had been on the other side, holding out coffee, one black and strong and one mostly consisting of gingerbread cream. Had wandered in as Michael—amazed, delighted, wondering, concerned—held the door open for him.   
  
James had hopped into Michael’s bed, pulled heavy covers up over bent knees, and put his head on Michael’s shoulder after Michael joined him, both of them sitting there amid pillows, leaning on the headboard and each other, surrounded by the silvery drumming of the rain.  
  
After a while, Michael’d put an arm around him, very carefully. And James had said, softly, that rain always feels like a difficult friend. Like a blanket around shoulders, sealing away the world. Like the way the roof’d leaked in his bedroom, all winter, one year. Companionable. And cold.   
  
Michael’d set fingers under his chin and lifted it just a fraction, enough for a kiss. James’s lips had tasted of gingerbread and chilly air. And James had, after the briefest flicker of startled hesitation, kissed him back.  
  
James does have nightmares, horrific ones—well, just one, really, it’s always the same no matter how often it comes—and wakes up trembling and trying to explain: he’s there, he’s always there, just standing by the bed, he doesn’t move, and I can’t move, I can’t because then he will, and it just goes on and on and I can’t even scream…  
  
Michael doesn’t know what to do to fight a nightmare. He can try, and he is trying—and maybe, maybe, winning at least one victory. James had gone to sleep again, after last night’s terrible visitation, in his arms. Had felt safe enough for that.   
  
Michael’s also accidentally thrown a spear right into that generous heart, only once but more than enough. His own words, babbling, never knowing when to shut up in an interview: no, I won’t take anything with me to the next project, you have to move on with your whole heart, y’know, can’t leave anything behind…  
  
He’d meant the role. The character. But James, who had only barely said yes to staying in Michael’s room at night and sleeping beside him, who’d only the night before trusted him to share a bed, had been listening.  
  
James _has_ forgiven him. Yesterday, had stood with him under the burning weight of the late-summer sky outside the studio, months after what Michael can’t think of as a break-up because he’d never truly given up, because he equally had never truly _had_ James, had only been beginning to know all the bits and pieces and invitations and complexities. James had, beneath yesterday’s arching brilliant cloudless sky-bell, offered him a nightmare secret, another piece of the puzzle held out in courageous second-chance trust. And then had kissed him like the sweetness of raindrops through sunbeams. And is here with him now.  
  
Michael, lying there beside him, their legs a tangle of matching muscular male calves and knees and his thigh draped over James’s, watches him drift back toward sleep, content with Michael’s touch, in Michael’s bed.   
  
And Michael thinks, so clearly it almost breaks his heart with joy: I love this man.  
  
His mobile goes off again. Email, this time. Then text. Multiple texts. He stares at it in bafflement.  
  
James’s mobile joins the party too. Also multiple times.  
  
James makes a sound that resembles no human word into the pillows and Michael’s arm, and then, “Phone? Phone, ’re you okay?” plus an uncoordinated floppy handwave that goes nowhere near leaving the pillow, much less finding said phone, which is in fact on Michael’s side.  
  
 _ James _ can be endearingly drowsily concerned about the health of their mobile devices. Michael, on the other hand, mutters imprecations under his breath and picks his up. It’d damn well better be urgent. He tries to ignore the gnawing feeling that perhaps it is, if it’s affecting both of them.  
  
He opens the first text. It’s from his agent. So’re most of the missed calls. A few others from friends and, alarmingly, his mother. They all say some variant of _what’s going on??_ and _since when were you gay?_ and _call me!_ and, in the case of his agent, _you fucking idiot, people have cameras!_  
  
He clicks one of the links. Stares, while his brain processes. Then says, very calmly, “James?”  
  
James blinks, yawns, and props himself up on an elbow, not entirely awake but obviously having picked up the gravity of the situation. “Hmm?”  
  
“Here.” He tilts the screen. Waits while James processes.  
  
“…oh.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Oh.” James stares at the screen for a few more heartbeats. Thunderously loud heartbeats. Michael’s chest is trying to reinvent the snare drum all by itself. He can’t tell what James is thinking. If James is thinking. If James isn’t just horrifiedly speechless.  
  
The photos could be worse. It’s not them kissing passionately in the studio parking lot, which it could’ve been, so thank God for minor kindnesses. It is, however, a quick sequence of snapshots: himself and James leaving the building hand in hand; James looking up at him and smiling, soft and fond; Michael offering a spare motorbike helmet with one hand and tenderly brushing wayward hair out of sapphire eyes with the other. Unmistakable, really. All the headlines seem to agree, though on balance they’re nicer about it and less surprised than Michael would’ve expected.  
  
He studies that third one. Maybe it’s been obvious in the way he looks at James, all along.  
  
His mother’s likely still going to kill him for not telling her, though.  
  
“Hmm,” James says again. “I like this last one. Can I have a copy?”  
  
“They’re on the _internet_ , James.” Okay, perhaps James isn’t awake at all yet. There’s a stray bit of sunbeam caught in his hair, tumbling through a crack in the curtains and snagging sleepily on rumpled dark waves. And James yawns once more, scrunching up his nose, all kitten-fuzzy with wide blue eyes.  
  
“No,” James says, blinking at him. “I know. I mean, can we save that one somewhere?”  
  
“Probably. You…do realize…this isn’t about how much I like seeing pictures of you on the back of my bike, right?”  
  
“Yes.” Ocean-spray eyes flick back to the visible headline—Professor X and Magneto In Real-Life Love Affair!—and then up to Michael’s face. “But at this point it’s more or less unstoppable, isn’t it? Like a tremendously excitable avalanche?”  
  
“My agent left me five angry voicemails and three texts. And my mother called.”  
  
James winces. Picks up his own phone, eyes it warily. “Yep. Hi, Gran. Didn’t know you knew those words. My grandmother very much shouldn’t know those words.”  
  
“What…how do you want to…” He takes a deep breath. The air’s too warm, no longer soothing but threatening to stifle each inhale. He’s not ashamed of James, of his sexuality, of being in love. Never, not ever, not about this. James makes him a better man; that’s incontrovertible.   
  
The fact remains that this moment should’ve been their choice. Their decision to come out, separately or as a couple. They should’ve talked about it, had the discussion, mutually agreed to step forward. And now they can’t. Because someone on the studio lot had a camera. Because someone was watching them, at that moment, right then.   
  
Michael can’t even blame that person. This is _news_.  
  
He swallows. If it’s bad for him, it’ll be worse for James. Who’s wonderfully strong with Michael or without, but who already has nightmares in which one faceless predatory shadow waits for him to make a move. Who doesn’t need more.  
  
Michael knows what _he_ wants. He can’t make this decision without knowing what James wants.  
  
“…what do you want to do?”  
  
“Do we need to do anything?” James looks at his phone again. Sets it to one side. “Probably make some sort of public statement, but aside from that…”  
  
“I think the question is what kind of statement?” He doesn’t mean his actual _sentence_ to come out as a question. It does anyway. Treacherous voice, giving emotions away. “My agent’s saying we should’ve got something out this morning, so it doesn’t look like we’re trying to hide.”  
  
“We’re not. And I— _we_ needed the sleep. Mine is suggesting we could try to pretend it didn’t happen. Sure, we’re holding hands, but we could say I tripped and you were helping me up…”  
  
Michael takes a breath, measured and precise. If it’s precise, he won’t have to think about anything falling apart. “Do you want to?”  
  
“No.” James tips his head to one side, smiling. The sunbeam settles into his hair. It’s smiling, too. “Absolutely not at all. I want to hold your hand and kiss you in public and tell the whole fucking world. I love you.”  
  
And that whole fucking world exhales, relief like release from the tightest of chains, shivery disbelieving elation. Michael has to swipe a hand across his eyes. James reaches out and takes it, after.   
  
“I do love you,” James says again, very quiet, almost solemn despite the smile. “I’m scared of—some things, yeah. You know those things. You’ve seen them up close, now. But not this. I can’t be afraid of this. Not with you.”  
  
“I love you _so fucking much_ ,” Michael gets out, and puts both arms around him. James says, “I know, I know you do, I know,” and curls into Michael’s chest and lets himself be clung to, while the sunbeams frolic around them.  
  
Eventually they’ll have to answer questions. To face the publicity, the barrage of prying curiosity, the demands for prurient detail. There’ll be some people, producers and other actors and casting directors, who won’t want to work with them, or who’ll be concerned about sex scenes, or who’ll condescendingly pretend to’ve known it all along and act ostentatiously unbothered. There will also be people who will support them, and offer roles based on talent alone, and cheer them on. It won’t be easy, but the industry’s shifting, and more celebrities come out every day, and it’ll be easier than it would’ve been even five years before; maybe even easier than that for anyone who follows in their wake.  
  
Michael rubs James’s back, thoughtfully tracing freckle-sprinkled muscles, lines and planes. James breathes out against his shoulder, soft and a little damp, and Michael kisses the top of his head. “Love? Is this—are you…sort of…all right? With doing this now?” It’s entirely possible that James is having, if not second thoughts, the kind of thoughts that come with the realization of, oh god, we’re doing this _today_.  
  
“Are you,” James whispers, to his shoulder.  
  
“Yes,” Michael says. He is. He knows he means it. James is the center of his universe, regardless of consequences or obnoxious journalists or demanding film roles that might pull them in separate directions. He’s nearly lost James once, and even then he thought of blue eyes upon first waking and before falling asleep, every single day.  
  
James lets out a small amused huff of breath. Leans more weight into him; Michael consequently holds him tighter, and waits for the comment.  
  
“So simple. Just like that.”  
  
“Just like that.” He rests his cheek atop all the wavy hair, breathing in the scent. Apples and warmth and kindness and James. “Not simple. It won’t be. But it _will_ be easy. I love you. We can do anything.”  
  
“Anything.” James is smiling. Michael can feel the curve of lips, even more so when they press a kiss into his skin. “Yes. Like last night.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Incredibly yes. And also…that anything would include us getting up, then, and getting me coffee, so I can be awake for the explosion…”  
  
“I can make coffee for you here.” Where James feels safe. Where James fell asleep in his arms, and woke up happy.  
  
“And I thoroughly appreciate you making coffee for me, but I mean…” James wriggles in his arms, gets them face to face. The sunbeam frisks along his eyelashes when he blinks. Michael simultaneously wants to kiss him and to gaze at him forever, memorizing the way he looks at this instant, bravery bathed in late-morning sun.   
  
“I mean,” James goes on, eyes serious and serene and sparkling, not leaving Michael’s as he speaks, “we could also go out in public and buy coffee and I could kiss you in a café completely full of overpriced pastries and people with mobile phones and free internet. And then figure out what sort of joint statement we want to make for the press. If you want.”  
  
“Yes!” Too emphatic, too relieved, too thrilled; enough that James starts laughing, sound rich and warm and merry in his arms. “Good, then, because—”  
  
“Yes,” Michael says again, and kisses him everywhere while he’s laughing, rolls him over into the pillows and the sunshine, and runs his tongue along all the gilded freckles on a forearm, a hip, a thigh, as they sparkle up at him fearlessly. “I want.”  


  
_ seems so easy _   
_ where you’re concerned _   
_ my heart has learned _   
_ it’s so easy to fall in love _   
_ it’s so easy to fall in love… _   



End file.
